Annie's Sustainable Agriculture Scholarships

Kendra Klein

$10,000 recipient

University of California, Berkeley

PhD Candidate

Kendra Klein is a 4^thyear PHD candidate in UC Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. Her research focuses on the intersection of sustainable agriculture and public health, and will contribute to the Farm to Hospital movement, which educates the public about sustainable agriculture and creates new markets for sustainably grown food in local hospital systems.   Kendra has spent time in Hawaii apprenticing on three organic farms and has volunteered with GMO Free Hawaii, researching the impact of GMO papayas on organic farms in Hawaii.  Most recently she worked on a ½ acre school garden, educating children about food and farming and taught two Environmental Studies courses at San Francisco State University. 
 
“Sustainable agriculture is a systems approach based on the understanding that we are the environment we eat. Like the pioneers of ecological agriculture, Sir Albert Howard, Lady Eve Balfour, and J.I. Rodale, I believe that healthy bodies begin with healthy soils.”
 

Vincent Smith

$10,000 recipient

University of Wisconsin- Madison

PhD Candidate

Vincent Smith is a PHD candidate at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, focusing on human/food relations. He is currently conducting research on the role of home and community garden food production to promote food security, community development, and impact long-term attitudes and behaviors about sustainable agriculture.   Vincent has been the manager of F.H. King Students for Sustainable Agriculture’s farm and CSA and now sits on the Board of Directors for that organization as well as the board for Community  Groundworks at Troy Gardens, a local non-profit promoting sustainable agriculture. He has also served as the program director for The Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens, administering the organic farming training programs, apprenticeships and farm to school programs. Currently, he runs the environmental humanities program at the UW Madison Center for Humanities.
 
“The realization of sustainable agriculture depends on wise farmers and thoughtful consumers. While sustainable agriculture additionally depends on a number of institutional structures working together to
benefit good farming; agriculture ultimately depends on families and friends committed to health
and equity over space and time.”
 

Megan Gregory

$2,500 recipient

Cornell University

PhD Candidate

Megan Gregory is a second year PHD candidate at Cornell, where she is a research assistant in an interdisciplinary lab group at Cornell, studying ecology-based management practices.   Before her work at Cornell, Megan spent four years as a Peace Corp volunteer in El Salvador, working with a rural community in Agroforestry, agriculture diversification and nutrition, water and sanitation, health and education projects.  She has taught educator development programs for Chicago Public Schools at the Chicago Botanic Garden Center for Teaching and Learning. Megan is part of the Urban Agriculture Working Group, where she created a sustainable garden resource network, which provides gardeners of all ages with the resources they need to plan, grow, prepare and preserve food from backyard and community gardens.
 
“Sustainable agriculture is a dynamic, inclusive process of producing and sharing food in a way that
nourishes communities of land and people. Sustainable agriculture depends on a combination of natural resources and ecological processes; healthy, educated, and socially engaged farmers and eaters; and supportive public policies and institutions.”
 

Kathleen Hilimire 

$2,500 recipient

University of California, Santa Cruz

Agroecology

Kathleen Hillimire is in her fourth year of graduate work at UC Santa Cruz, focusing on Agroecology. She has spent time in Costa Rica on a pineapple farm researching soil erosion and eventually helped the farm convert to organic agriculture. Kathleen has been an outdoor teacher, teaching young people about the natural world, been an instructor for The Road Less Traveled By, coordinating groups to rebuild school houses, and showed local students the estuaries in their own backyards through her work for the Save San Francisco Bay foundation.
 
“Agriculture is sustainable when agricultural landscapes are providing ecosystem services, when agroecosystem design is guided by ecological principles, when growers and workers are economically compensated, when working conditions are just, and when rural communities are vibrant.”
 

Chris Kucek

$10,000 recipient

University of Minnesota- Twin Cities

Applied Plant Science- Agroecology

Chris Kucek is a sophomore at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities working toward a degree in Agroecology. Outside of class, Chris is involved with his university’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders, designing an anaerobic biodigester for communities in Haiti. The biodigester treats human waste for use as a fertilizer and provides fuel for cooking. Most recently, Chris has been working in the campus greenhouse on a barley improvement project on campus, which has helped him gain knowledge of grain plants and the plant breeding process.  
 
“One small system cycling nutrients, money, and respect does little in the larger scheme of things, but by providing a model that can be adapted to another place, its impact is huge. One system becomes two, and as the logic and appeal of farming sustainably spreads with the success of these local food systems, the impact of a single farm expands hugely. Therefore, in this movement of small farmers, small consumers, and small impacts, what I do on a single farm, just like what every other farmer and eater in this system does, will matter.”
 

Brendan Sinclair 

$10,000 recipient

Michigan State University

Environmental Studies and Agroecology

Brendan Sinclair is a junior at Michigan State, majoring in Environmental Studies and Agriscience. In summer 2009 Brendan worked on his university’s student –run-organic farm, and throughout the year assists other students in their sustainable agriculture goals through the farm’s year long organic education program. Brendan is also a part of Ecological Food and Farm Stewardship, a student organization that raises awareness about eating sustainably and the importance of eating locally grown organic food in alignment with the seasons.
 
“To me, sustainable agriculture means food systems that connect people to healthy organic food that is grown or raised fairly, honestly, and treats people, plants, animals and the earth with dignity and respect, as well as recognizes the delicate balance of ecosystems, the significance of our mutual interaction with each other, and the importance of maintaining healthy conditions for a healthy future.”
 

Ariel Fugate

$2,500 recipient

North Carolina State University

Fisheries and Wildlife Science

Ariel Fugate is a sophomore at North Carolina State majoring in Fisheries and Wildlife Science. As co-founder and manager of her university’s Farmer’s Market, Ariel has been working to increase the availability locally-grown food on her campus. She is also involved with the University Dining Committee, working to bring local foods into campus eateries, and works university’s Office of Waste Reduction and Recycling, assisting the office in researching grants for a compost program.
 
“Sustainable agriculture is farming for the future, but also the present; it is using traditional, and non-traditional, techniques; it is for those out for profit or those not for profit. Above all, sustainable agriculture is for the diversity of humans, animals and plants that thread our interweaved world of ecosystems.”
 

Sarah Parker

$2,500 recipient

Pennsylvania State University

Landscape Architecture

Sarah Parker is a senior at Penn State working towards a degree in Landscape Architecture. Currently she is studying sustainable design in New Zealand through WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms).  This summer, she will spend three months in Williams, Ore., studying the region and community in order to craft a master plan for the Williams Valley Watershed.  She has also worked as a biological aide for the US Fish and Wildlife Services and as a Wetland Monitoring Assistant for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
 
“Sustainable agriculture represents not a conquering of, but cooperation with natural systems that can support symbiotic communities. Through a design thatsupports this more functional relationship with the environment, communities can work to revitalize
their own connections with their surroundings, beginning with the fundamental relationship between the individual and their food source.”